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CONFRONTING THE 1938 DERSIM MASSACRE
ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ
TODAYSZAMAN.COM
http://www.sundayszaman.com/sunday/columnistDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=251749&c olumnistId=102
July 26, 2011
Turkey
When I see some of our politicians arguing and quarreling, I cannot
help but think about American wrestling. You should know it; the
wrestling games where huge guys wrestle with their opponents on stage.
You might think that a real fight is happening but nothing ever
happens to the wrestlers because it is of course a fake struggle. It
is a show put on for children and for those who still feel like a
child. Just as the wrestlers, the Turkish politicians also engage in
fake struggles. One of their scraps is all about facing the past.
A brutal massacre was committed in Dersim, Turkey in 1938. Even though
history refers to the massacre as a campaign of slaughter targeting
the Kurds and the Alevis, it is really about the 1915 massacres.
Dersim was one of the areas where the Armenians fleeing the 1915
massacre took refuge. The Dersim massacre is not the first or the last
bloodshed in the history of Turkey. Kemal Kılıcdaroglu, leader of the
main opposition Republican Peoples' Party (CHP), is from Dersim. In
an effort to push Kılıcdaroglu into the corner, Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes frequent references to the Dersim massacre.
Just like American wrestlers, Erdogan and Kılıcdaroglu stage a fake
fight over the Dersim massacre. Erdogan invites Kılıcdaroglu to
face up to history, whereas Kılıcdaroglu makes a call for Erdogan
to open the archives. In reality, nobody wants to do anything. The
political struggle is an imagined wrestling game staged before the
Turkish people who have remained childlike because of their failure
to face up the past. What we are seeing is a show. Erdogan does not
intend to reveal the truth; he is aware of the historical chains bound
to his political rival's feet and he is challenging him; that's all.
Kılıcdaroglu, born in Dersim, is of course aware of the meaning of
Dersim and of what happened there in 1938. However, he is also aware
that facing up to the past and the truth would force him to analyze
and question the roots of his party as well, given that the orders for
bombing Dersim were given by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the CHP.
Erdogan's eagerness to deal with the past is limited to the CHP's
history. He does not want to know or see that the Dersim massacre took
place in 1938 because of the mentality of the people who committed
the 1915 massacres. Otherwise, confrontation with the 1938 would be
easier since its history goes back to 1915.
This is how the political leaders act. Is the case any different for
their supporters? Do you think that the conservatives, the Alevis and
the concerned moderns are at all confronting anything? I heard from
a friend of mine that the Alevis had printed a calendar marking the
days bearing importance for them and that in this calendar, Dersim
was said to have taken place in 1939. This pathetic effort to present
the massacre as something that took place after the demise of Ataturk
(November 1938) makes me sad.
The situation of our conservatives who, by supporting the Ergenekon
investigation, believe that they are confronting the past is no
different. The motion filed by CHP members in the assembly of the
İstanbul Municipality requesting that Ergenekon Street be changed
to Hrant Dink Street did not go through because the Justice and
Development Party (AKP) voted against it. So positions can change when
roles are different. We have a serious problem with confrontation. We
are unable to face our truth and past. We cannot properly appreciate
our victimization, our brutality; thank God, we have begun talking
about the Armenian issue over the last 5-6 years. The Ergenekon case
has shed some light on Turkey's dark near past. But the ways in which
the issue is being dealt with is still superficial. We are trying to
understand the past from a limited perspective and by blaming the
others. For instance, the Alevis fail to see the role of the state
in the massacres they have been subjected to, whereas the Sunnis seek
to put the whole blame on the state to stop their suffering. Reality
is painful and we are not mature enough to confront it.
What we call confrontation is not something that we could do by relying
on superficial reasoning. We could deal with the past by opening
up our hearts to the stories of others, feeling the pain and agony
of these stories and witnessing the destruction of what we thought
was true. Hrant Dink tried to do this, but was murdered because he
invited us to confront our past. Dink has always been a target, but
whenever he attempted to speak about the Armenian tragedy connected
to the story of an orphan girl, the Dersim massacre and the linkage
between the two, he became a number one target. Dink claimed Sabiha
Gökcen (adopted by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk) who bombed Dersim was an
Armenian orphan. With this statement, he touched upon our hearts;
he reached out to the deepest depths of our minds. Try to feel what
it is like being an Armenian orphan who dropped bombs on Dersim. When
I think about it, I suddenly recall the final remarks by Sayyid Reza
during his execution in Dersim:
"We are descendants of Kerbela. We are innocent. It is a dishonor. A
cruelty. A murder; this is exactly what the Dersim massacre is."
ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ
TODAYSZAMAN.COM
http://www.sundayszaman.com/sunday/columnistDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=251749&c olumnistId=102
July 26, 2011
Turkey
When I see some of our politicians arguing and quarreling, I cannot
help but think about American wrestling. You should know it; the
wrestling games where huge guys wrestle with their opponents on stage.
You might think that a real fight is happening but nothing ever
happens to the wrestlers because it is of course a fake struggle. It
is a show put on for children and for those who still feel like a
child. Just as the wrestlers, the Turkish politicians also engage in
fake struggles. One of their scraps is all about facing the past.
A brutal massacre was committed in Dersim, Turkey in 1938. Even though
history refers to the massacre as a campaign of slaughter targeting
the Kurds and the Alevis, it is really about the 1915 massacres.
Dersim was one of the areas where the Armenians fleeing the 1915
massacre took refuge. The Dersim massacre is not the first or the last
bloodshed in the history of Turkey. Kemal Kılıcdaroglu, leader of the
main opposition Republican Peoples' Party (CHP), is from Dersim. In
an effort to push Kılıcdaroglu into the corner, Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes frequent references to the Dersim massacre.
Just like American wrestlers, Erdogan and Kılıcdaroglu stage a fake
fight over the Dersim massacre. Erdogan invites Kılıcdaroglu to
face up to history, whereas Kılıcdaroglu makes a call for Erdogan
to open the archives. In reality, nobody wants to do anything. The
political struggle is an imagined wrestling game staged before the
Turkish people who have remained childlike because of their failure
to face up the past. What we are seeing is a show. Erdogan does not
intend to reveal the truth; he is aware of the historical chains bound
to his political rival's feet and he is challenging him; that's all.
Kılıcdaroglu, born in Dersim, is of course aware of the meaning of
Dersim and of what happened there in 1938. However, he is also aware
that facing up to the past and the truth would force him to analyze
and question the roots of his party as well, given that the orders for
bombing Dersim were given by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the CHP.
Erdogan's eagerness to deal with the past is limited to the CHP's
history. He does not want to know or see that the Dersim massacre took
place in 1938 because of the mentality of the people who committed
the 1915 massacres. Otherwise, confrontation with the 1938 would be
easier since its history goes back to 1915.
This is how the political leaders act. Is the case any different for
their supporters? Do you think that the conservatives, the Alevis and
the concerned moderns are at all confronting anything? I heard from
a friend of mine that the Alevis had printed a calendar marking the
days bearing importance for them and that in this calendar, Dersim
was said to have taken place in 1939. This pathetic effort to present
the massacre as something that took place after the demise of Ataturk
(November 1938) makes me sad.
The situation of our conservatives who, by supporting the Ergenekon
investigation, believe that they are confronting the past is no
different. The motion filed by CHP members in the assembly of the
İstanbul Municipality requesting that Ergenekon Street be changed
to Hrant Dink Street did not go through because the Justice and
Development Party (AKP) voted against it. So positions can change when
roles are different. We have a serious problem with confrontation. We
are unable to face our truth and past. We cannot properly appreciate
our victimization, our brutality; thank God, we have begun talking
about the Armenian issue over the last 5-6 years. The Ergenekon case
has shed some light on Turkey's dark near past. But the ways in which
the issue is being dealt with is still superficial. We are trying to
understand the past from a limited perspective and by blaming the
others. For instance, the Alevis fail to see the role of the state
in the massacres they have been subjected to, whereas the Sunnis seek
to put the whole blame on the state to stop their suffering. Reality
is painful and we are not mature enough to confront it.
What we call confrontation is not something that we could do by relying
on superficial reasoning. We could deal with the past by opening
up our hearts to the stories of others, feeling the pain and agony
of these stories and witnessing the destruction of what we thought
was true. Hrant Dink tried to do this, but was murdered because he
invited us to confront our past. Dink has always been a target, but
whenever he attempted to speak about the Armenian tragedy connected
to the story of an orphan girl, the Dersim massacre and the linkage
between the two, he became a number one target. Dink claimed Sabiha
Gökcen (adopted by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk) who bombed Dersim was an
Armenian orphan. With this statement, he touched upon our hearts;
he reached out to the deepest depths of our minds. Try to feel what
it is like being an Armenian orphan who dropped bombs on Dersim. When
I think about it, I suddenly recall the final remarks by Sayyid Reza
during his execution in Dersim:
"We are descendants of Kerbela. We are innocent. It is a dishonor. A
cruelty. A murder; this is exactly what the Dersim massacre is."